Mind IF I park HERE?

Despite the emergency landing, you can see the pilot of this aircraft (top picture) is in relatively good spirits and more importantly UNHARMED.

Let us back up a second. I did not sleep well last night. Needless to say when Doc came home from work, I was a little bit grumpy about being woken up. He took it well. So, I spent the next hour getting the dogs out, Molly up and ready for school, and then I came back in, finished my coffee and said, yea, I am gonna GO BACK TO BED.

I had just crawled into the bed and was on the hinge of sleep or wake and I heard this noise. My first thought was that it was a solicitor and he/she was banging on the door. But the noise did not fit the frantic wooshing noise. I listened closer and sat up in the bed trying to orientate where the noise was coming from and what it was. IT was LOUD. I could hear the bird freaking out and I could hear the dogs freaking out but they were just shallow noises in compared to the... is it flapping?

Disgruntled, I rose from bed, got dressed and followed my ears. On the front porch I looked around. Right away I noticed a big red thing over by Ms Robin's house. And it was moving. I knew that was not right. I grabbed Doc's phone and rushed out the back door with my my flip flops on. LOL. I ran. Or waddled in a fast motion. By the time I hit the driveway I saw the whole scene.

There was a large hot air balloon down between the driveway and the neighbors house. I saw a man crawling out of the basket. OH SHIT. I started to run. He was OK. He started to check out the balloon and the basket and he was talking to some other neighbors that had rushed to his aid on their 4x4. I looked to my right and Ms Robin was coming down the hill with her nephew. OK. Everyone home on the ground was OK.

The man turned and smiled and asked if it was OK if he landed in the yard. Um no, mister, get back in that thing and move it! We were like, YEA, ARE YOU OK. Ok it was an emergency landing, he wasn't death, LOL, but wow. He said that he was from Hendersonville and his chase crew was on the way. He thought it was a nice day but when he got up in the air, the wind was really bad and he saw our valley and decided the safest thing to do was land.

It is all good. He was unharmed, maybe a little spooked but unharmed. He used great judgment and all is well. Even the balloon and the basket!